Chordal Tapping

The 1978 release of Van Halen's debut album turned heads, twisted ears and mesmerized listeners with its previously unheard sounds created via tapping.

Tapping – the technique of hammering notes with a right hand finger directly over the fretboard – allows great speed and the use of larger intervals with fairly little effort.

At least compared to conventional playing techniques.

Although there is one huge disadvantage:

It's hard NOT to sound like Eddie Van Halen.

You really need to add your personality and a second helping of originality to avoid sounding like a EVH clone spitting out tapped triplet after triplet in a continuous eruption of notes. ;-)

But hey, no need in blaming the technique for a use that turned into a cliché.

Especially since it is possible to integrate tapping into your playing and stepping out of EVH's long cast shadow.

Just take a look at players like:

	Stanley Jordan
	Jennifer Batten
	T.J. Helmerich
	Steve Lynch
	Steve Vai

They added more fingers to the deal, created a simultaneous lead/comping approach and in general pushed the envelope extending the boundaries of tapping.

And yes....

Joe Satriani's name needs to be added to the previous list.

He composed some nice pieces using a chordal tapping approach where he utilizes the technique to create otherwise impossible sounds and textures.

Have fun with our excerpts and the accompanying short analyses to help you develop this useful tapping technique.